


On my birthday

by Butterfish



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Birthday, Love, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Memories, POV First Person, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-08
Updated: 2012-06-08
Packaged: 2017-11-07 08:02:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/428752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Butterfish/pseuds/Butterfish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was supposed to be a surprise birthday party for Arthur, but the man had already planned his day. But as he gets lost in the memory of the years he spent with Alfred, he realises that not even at his age can the future be planned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On my birthday

I had it all neatly planned.

My birthday celebration was at noon at the local pub. It was supposed to be a surprise party and I had been lead to believe I had forgotten a pair of gloves which I was to go pick up. But of course Gilbert can never keep quiet about anything. A month in advance he’d let me know how there would be free beer, cake and plenty of friends to see. He scolded himself the moment he’d let me know and begged me not to tell anyone he’d broken his silence. I promised him I wouldn’t. After all he’d unintentionally helped me prepare the day all the better.

I got up early and showered, shaved my chin and put on a simple, white shirt, a green cardigan and my wedding ring. I read the engraved words over and over again: I’ll love you forever. No matter how often I’d looked at the sentence, it still made me feel warm inside.

Alfred had truly loved me like no one else could. Every Sunday he’d brought me fresh flowers and we’d danced in the living room to music from my old transistor. In the summer we would do a foxtrot in the garden and have everyone laughing at us when they passed by the hedge. But we were deeply in love and didn’t care. I remember him kissing my earlobe and whispering to me about how beautiful I was. I believed him and would press shy kisses to his skin. Though I never said much, I know he was aware of my profound love for him.

As the timers on the clock stroke twelve I walked to the pub and made sure to be there five minutes past noon. As I opened the door to the cosy place which I’d visited for years, a handful of confetti was thrown in my face and someone shouted: “There’s the old man!”

“Happy birthday!” they all cheered.

I smiled at them and rubbed the colourful paper off of my face. “Thank you, what a surprise!” I said.

“He’s not surprised at all,” Peter chirped. He was still holding a bag of confetti. There was a hole on the bottom of it and paper was spreading everywhere like a rainbow. “Who told him? I didn’t! I didn’t!”

Gilbert was standing looking uncomfortable with a bottle of beer in his hands, but Francis calmed everyone down by walking over and pecking my cheek friendly. “It doesn’t matter,” he said with a heavy, French accent. “He is here now. Happy birthday, Arthur. 50 years. Who would’ve thought you would survive for that long with all the fast food you eat!”

“And all the cigarettes you smoke,” Ludwig added.

I smiled at both of them and pinched Francis’ thin ear. “It’s all about building up fat to survive the winter,” I said.

“Then you’ve come to the right place,” Francis laughed and gestured towards the layered cake on the table. “Dig in! And let’s have some beer.”

“And a soda for me!” Peter said.

I eyed the banner with my name on it hanging from the ceiling and nodded. “Okay.”

 

 

“To think that twenty years ago, he proposed right there.”

I sipped my beer and looked at Francis. He had a tendency to swoon about romances though he’d never had one himself that lasted for more than a year. He was gesturing towards where I was sitting and everyone quieted down to listen to him.

“What a thrilling moment that must have been!”

“Oh, you know the story,” I said and put down the glass.

Ludwig elbowed Francis. “We all know the story. Please, move on.”

“I don’t know it,” Peter said and finally hesitated with his fork by his lips. He had been feeding off of the cake constantly since he got his first slice. He had started to look sick, but now he woke up again. “Who proposed where?”

“Alfred proposed to Arthur right there.” Francis pointed at me again and I slapped his hand away.

“It was on my birthday. I was turning 30 years old,” I said looking at Peter. “It was a lovely autumn day, just like the one today, but colder. My cheeks were red and my hands frozen, and Alfred offered to warm them up for me…”

Alfred had always been a romantic but an awkward one. He often tried too hard, but with his proposal I think everything went just right. He knew I didn’t want any big celebration. I just wanted for the two of us to hang out and have a common, quiet meal. It was his idea to at least leave the house and go for fish and chips nearby. I picked the pub on the corner and he happily took my hand in his and walked me there.

I was skinnier back then. It didn’t take much for me to get cold and by the time we entered, I was shaking and begging for something warm to drink. Alfred ordered us hot chocolate to drink before anything else and we sat down at a table shadowed from the rest of the guests. He took the seat next to me and furiously started rubbing my hands to warm them up. I said it was no good. He said he had an idea that would give me plenty of energy to run on. I told him he was stupid and he stumbled down to kneel on the floor, withdrew a box from his pocket and asked:

“Will a life-long marriage keep you warm?”

“Gross,” Peter interrupted the story and Francis hushed.

I laughed and cut him another slice of the cake. “It sounds so common, but he was such a sweetheart. Here you go-”

“So what did you say?” Peter asked and held his plate forward as I dropped the slice onto it.

“I said: you are a fool, Mr Jones. And then I kissed him until I was all red and sweaty and warm.”

“Gross,” Peter repeated.

Francis sat watching the air dreamingly meanwhile. “To be fifty and have experienced such love,” he said quietly.

“There is such thing as senior dating,” Gilbert reminded him cheekily.

Francis dumped a glass of beer on him, Gilbert whined and we all went on to chatting about rugby.

 

 

Five hours later I thanked them all by the door. It had gotten dark. The chilly wind was biting at my cheeks and I already felt sore and tired. But this wasn’t the end of my day. It was just about to begin.

I made sure to hug each of them - even Peter though he protested loudly and teasingly I kissed his forehead wetly. “You will miss such great affection when you grow older,” I said and he just stared at me dumbfounded.

“We will see you Monday for poker, I believe?” Francis asked and pecked my cheek and I pecked his back much to his surprise.

“Believing is always good,” I smiled.

As I left, they kept waving at me until we couldn’t see each other anymore.

I walked home following the hedges and I curiously peeked into the gardens. Most of them were well kept. I had taken much pride in making sure mine was the prettiest in the neighbourhood, but recently my back had started hurting and I had had to give up on it all. Now weed were growing wildly. It didn’t please my eye, but I tried not to think too much about it.

We held our wedding in the garden, Alfred and I. It seemed appropriate at the time; neither of us had saved up for a grand wedding and Alfred had put a lot of money into the rings and my suit to make sure I looked my best. Though some of the girls seemed surprised as we arrived at our house instead of some nicely decorated place, we all had a great time and I love our wedding photos. Everyone looks so happy. I remember it as the best day of my life.

I arrived at my garden gate and walked in and up the stairs. As I entered, I locked the door and turned on all lights inside the house. I turned the heating up high and then went to shower again. I did everything all over. Showered, did my hair, put on some nice perfume and carried the wedding ring to the bedroom. I put it on the duvet and reached into the back of my closet for the suit I had been wearing at the wedding. It was a little dusty, but still nice. As I put it on, it squeezed in tightly around my stomach and legs, but I didn’t look as silly as I’d expected. I glanced at myself in the mirror while putting the ring back on.

“Arthur Kirkland Jones,” I said and straightened up a little. “What a life you’ve had.”

 

 

Dad wanted for me to become a soldier like himself and it was under pressure that I turned myself in for service. He thought that some exercising would get my mind off of men. He had noticed I was dating boys though I never told him straight out that I was gay. I think he believed that if I got the right friends, I would sooner or later start doing like them and find a nice, little lady to marry. Ironically I found corporal Alfred instead.

Alfred was older than me and married at the time, but we just knew that it had to be the two of us. He was strong but sweet, determined but awkward and I flirted shamelessly with him.

I left the army after just two years, but we kept seeing each other. At some point he divorced his wife and moved in with me as if it was the simplest thing in the world. We lived together for five years before he proposed. I thought we would stay together forever. We did. But only in Alfred’s lifetime.

The day after my forty years birthday I found Alfred dead in the bathroom. He’d woken up in the middle of the night and had started walking around. He’d done that often in the last four years of our marriage. I had begged him to see a doctor, but Alfred didn’t want to. He said he used to be a great soldier and that nothing was wrong with his health. I fooled myself into believing him and that night, as he asked me to just go back to sleep, I did. I don’t know what happened. But I can vividly imagine.

Alfred must have walked around out of breath and feeling dizzy. I think he worried about waking me up, so he walked to the bathroom and sat down on the floor. Sometime later he died from a stroke. As I found him, he was clutching his wedding ring tightly in his left hand while his right one was pressed to his chest. I screamed so loudly the neighbours came running. From that day on I felt as if I had lost a piece of myself.

 

 

In the living room I put on the old VHS with our wedding and started lighting candles all over the room. I turned the light off and looked around the dim room with a smile. I pulled the curtains. On the television Alfred was chatting lightly with the cameraman.

“ _…happy? How not to be happy, have you seen my husband? Ha, ha! … Would die without him. Stop laughing! Ha, ha! I would!_ ”

I looked down and then glanced at the television. Alfred was smiling brightly back at me. I hadn’t watched the tape once since he died. We would sometimes watch it together when he was still here and he would start it, stop it, forward and pick put his favourite moments. But after he died I couldn’t make myself watch him smile. Doing it now made my eyes go watery and I took in a deep breath.

“I am only doing what is right,” I said and walked to the bathroom to get the glass with sleeping pills. It was full. I planned on having them all with a bottle of wine; one of the fine ones Francis had bought me on his trip to Paris.

I sat down on the sofa just as the tape ended. I watched the television vibrating blackly. Then I opened the glass. I poured the pills out on the table and started counting them. 1, 2, 3, 4… I did it quietly and sternly, I was calculating in my head how many it would take to kill me and how many more I would swallow extra just to be sure I would never wake up again. 10, 11, 12… I wondered if Francis would make up a romantic story about this to tell Peter. 15, 16… Maybe he would turn me into the sleeping beauty.  20, 21… Maybe he would make death a fairytale.

“ _Is this working? Arthur? Ha, ha…_ ”

I looked up. I looked over at the television. My eyes widened.

Alfred was showing up on the screen but it was like I’d never seen him before. He would always stop the tape right after the scene with everyone cheering. I had always thought that was the end of the tape. But there he was sitting smiling at me like the darling he used to be.

“ _I have to be quiet, because you’re sleeping right now. It was a hell of a party, wasn’t it? Man, you looked handsome standing there in the garden with all the roses around you. I almost cried. But I can’t cry in front of everyone, you know that, ha, ha!_ ”

I slowly turned in the couch and watched. Alfred was leaning all close to the camera to speak to me. And it really felt as if he was doing just that; speaking to me right there in that moment.

“ _I wanted for you to know that I love you. Umm, I know you think that I tell you that all the time and why should I do this extra shoot to let you know? Well, you know I do silly things. We all do silly things sometimes. Don’t you think so?_ ”

I squeezed the empty pill-glass in my hand and nodded.

“ _But I do love you. Heh… I love you so much my heart sometimes hurt. Do you know what I sometimes think? I think I am lucky to be older than you, because that means I will go first! I know, it’s creepy to think like that, but, oh man, you can’t imagine. Me living without you? How should I ever be able to do that?_ ”

“How…?” I asked in a whisper.

Alfred was smiling shyly. He showed the camera his hand. “ _See this ring? It’s so precious to me. Now everyone will know I have already found happiness. I don’t have to search further. Gee, Arthur, you have no idea… Sometimes I get lonely, but when I think of you, it all gets better! I think… I think even if you found someone else, I could live happily knowing that you would be happy and alive. That’s what matters to me. That you are able to smile every day. Remember to smile!_ ”

I smiled slowly. I dropped the glass to the floor. It rolled in underneath the sofa.

“ _I love you Arthur. I-, fuck, man, you’re waking up. Okay, uh, when you see this, let me know, okay? Let me know you understand everything I said. And let’s go swim naked in the sea like when we first- … uh, you know, ha, ha! Okay, fuck, here you come. Bye!_ ”

“ _Alfred, what are you-_ ”

The VHS clicked and ended.

I stared at the black screen. Then I slowly curled up on the sofa as tears pressed out my eyes and I started howling like a child. I was gasping for air. I was out of control. “I understand,” I hiccupped. “Fuck you. I understand…” And I hated understanding.

Though I had every neatly planned, Alfred had been a step ahead of me for all these years.

 

 

“Ah, there you are.”

I walked into the pub and looked around. Francis was sitting at the table with the cards ready. Gilbert was sitting next to him with a beer. They both smiled as I walked over.

“Hey old man,” Gilbert grinned. “Still alive?”

I sat down across of them and smiled. “Yes, still alive.”


End file.
